Call to act against illegal poly bag producers

About 1,000 factories are producing banned polythene bags throughout the country under nose of the law enforcement agencies. The product is harmful for the environment as well as for the human beings, the environmentalists said at a human chain in front of National Press Club on Thursday.
Save The Environment Movement and Environment and Social Development Organisation jointly held the human chain while observing International Plastic Free Day-2014.  
They said, most of the factories are in Old Dhaka, Mirpur, Karwan Bazaar, Tejgaon, Kamrangirchar and Tongi. About 100 factories have been set up on the riverbank of Buriganga to Fatullah in Narayanganj.
Besides, the factories Chittagong are producing thousands of bags everyday. A syndicate is marketing those bags through out the country, they said.
The owners of the factories under the banner of packaging factory are producing the polythene bags, they added.
Engineer M Abdus Sobhan, General Secretary of Save The Environment Movement, said, about 500 billion polythene bags are used throughout the world everyday.
Bangladesh is exporting the jute-made bags three to five per cent of the demands in the USA. “Our country can earn one billion US dollar only exporting jute-made bags there every year”, he said.
Abdus Sobhan depicting the bad impact of the polythene on the environment urged the government to stop the use of polythene and encourage the factory owners to produce the jute-made bags for exporting abroad.